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Ecumenical Chess. Set of Variants incorporating Camels and Camel compound pieces. (8x10, Cells: 80) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Charles Gilman wrote on Fri, Aug 27, 2004 07:46 AM UTC:

'In Pawnless E.C., what's to prevent White from opening with h2g5,
winning the exchange of the black rook on h8?' To start with, the better
prize of the Marshal on f8! It certainly demonstrates that the Camel has
its strengths on a FIDE board that it lacks on Really Big Boards.
	Would moving the Caliphs forward to the middle of the second rank with
RVDQKMGR on the back rank, fix it? It certainly leaves Black guarding b5
and g5, and as far as I can see the most that White could get through
forced exchange for a Caliph would be the weaker Knight (1 d2-e3 ~ 2 e3xb7
c8xb7). Still, best to check if I've overlooked anything again before
posting as modified.
	A variant combining these pieces with Glenn Overby's is an interesting
idea, although the names Pegasus and Roc suffer from mutiple uses. His
Pegasus is the same as my Gamewarden, as when I submitted FUO I was
planning another use for Pegasus. His Roc I am planning to term a Caribou
as part of a quartet with Kangaroo (from Outback Chess), Carpenter (N+D)
and Casbah (C+D), for extrapolation much like the pieces from this
variant.
	In Dai Shogi, the Ferz+Elephant compound is called a Flying Dragon, so
the name Caliph for Bishop+Camel has the advantage of not being ambiguous.